Radio favourite Sara Cox reflects on a year of big-hearted challenges, long afternoons, cherished friendships and the strange magic of keeping the nation company on their commute home.
If you assume Sara Cox is perennially, the chirpy soul she comes across as on the radio, you’d be largely right. “Look, I’m not saying I leap out of bed singing,” she jokes, “but I do have a really positive and uplifting outlook on life. In essence, I’m good to go!”.
Her warmth becomes clear as soon as she talks about her career. “I’ve been doing this long enough to know how precious it is to still enjoy it,” she says, referencing her Radio 2 afternoon show that accompanies people back to their homes after a day of grind. “The listeners feel like mates. I’ve had messages from people saying they’ve driven to chemotherapy with me on, or done school runs with me for a decade… that kind of thing gets you.”
This year, however, another side of Sara was on display: her sheer grit. For Comic Relief, she took on a challenge that pushed her far outside her comfort zone – walking 135 miles over five days en route to raising over £9million for the charity. “I still don’t know how they talked me into it,” she laughs. “I kept thinking, I’m 50, surely there’s a nice bake-off I can do instead? But no. I got the challenge that involved pain, sweat and a whiff of midlife crisis.”
She pauses, then softens. “The truth is, Comic Relief is important to me. It changes things. And when you see people donate during those challenges, you realise the discomfort is tiny compared to the help it provides.”
Though she’s fiercely proud of her northern roots Sara, who hails from Lancashire, happily admits that London life has shaped her too. “You can’t work this job unless you’ve got a bit of capital-city chaos in you,” she says, “but I’ll always be a Bolton lass. If you listen carefully, you can probably hear my mum shouting at me to put a scarf on!”
Her future plans include more writing (“I’ve got half a book somewhere… I just need to find which drawer it’s in”), more presenting, and an energetic appetite for varied broadcasting.
“I’ve reached an age where I want to try things that scare me slightly. If you’re not a bit wobbly, where’s the fun?”
As one of radio’s most familiar voices, she knows her job has changed. “People can get entertainment everywhere – podcasts, TikTok, TV. But radio’s still special. It’s you and them. Nothing fancy.”
